In+a+mystery+if+heroism,+Steph+Cranse+uses+naturalism+and+irnoy+to+depict+how+the+individual+acts+foolishly+on+impulse+by+takung+unnecessay+risks.

Shelby H, Laura R, Robbie H - Period Three    __**Summary:**__ A Solider named Fred Collins is in the middle of a battle. He is thirsty and there is a well in a house across the battlefield. He asks permission to go to the well and get water to bring back for him and the others. The other men tease and taunt him. He risks his life to get to the well. While walking to the well, Collins starts thinking of himself as a hero, then changes his mind, saying that real heroes are heroic their whole lives. On the way back with the water, he comes across a dying man who wants a sip of water. He splashes the man with some water then returns back to his comrades. They end up spilling the water and no one gets a drink except for the dying man from earlier.
 * Uses naturalism (portraying common people and ordinary life accurately)
 * Showed how a normal person would act in the same situation.
 *    Crane is basically saying the common individual takes risks for foolish reasons. (Ex: Collins didn’t **need** the water. He was just being pressured by his comrades.)
 *    "If yeh want a drink so bad why don't yeh go git it?"
 *    Uses irony
 *    Collins risked his life for something he didn't really need and ended up having it taken from him. (The other solders spill it.)
 *    The only person who got to drink the water was fated to die. (Or at least appeared to be dying.) 
 *    Visualization
 *    very vivid description of the battle to make the reader realize the danger and risk of Collin's actions
 * "A shell struck the grey ruins of the house and as, after the roar, the shattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled the flapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter."
 *    To think about...
 * What makes a hero?
 *    Is he a hero, or was it just one heroic act?
 *    Are heroes honorable and brave or just foolish?